I didn't really say that vernong. If you look at your final score, at the bottom, it's split into three categories:

-SM2.0 Score
-HDR/SM3.0 Score
-CPU Score

The top two test out your GPU and the last one tests out your CPU, so it's 2/3 graphics card benching and 1/3 CPU benching, as far as graphics processing's concerned.

The point I wanted to make is that if the cpu was literally bottlenecking your graphics card, then your SM2.0 and HDR/SM3.0 scores would suffer, however, if the game is particularly CPU-intensive, it doesn't matter what you set your graphics settings to, you'll still get poor performance, for example, with my old P4/512MB-PC100/9600XT system, I maxed out in CS:S at 20 fps whether I was maxed out at full res in DX9 or running 640x480 with low-settings in DX7, because my P4 and old ram just couldn't handle the physics and computing other aspects of the game. The graphics are really just a facade to the skeleton of performance which comes down to your cpu. In a sense, both situations would be considered bottlenecking, but with completely different reasons. In one case, it may vary from game to game, whereas in the other case, it will bring limitations to any game you try and play (like pairing up an 8800GTX with a P4).

ur CPU is holding you back some... but Phenom should change that... hopefully...

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well the 8800gt will be bottlenecked by that Opteron 180... but.. its an impressive card for the price..

Really? I didn't know that, I'm running an Opteron 165 @ 2.25Ghz and a 8800GT at 700/1900, and I think it's running a **** lot faster than when I had my 7900GT which was supposedly being bottlenecked by my Opteron too.

Really? I didn't know that, I'm running an Opteron 165 @ 2.25Ghz and a 8800GT at 700/1900, and I think it's running a **** lot faster than when I had my 7900GT which was supposedly being bottlenecked by my Opteron too.

Can't wait till my RMA'd E8750 and P35 Pro returns.

You'll probably notice the bottleneck in CPU-bound games, like UT3. My E2160 gave me about 20-25 fps at 1.8GHz and it jumped to 50-60 fps once I set it to 3.0GHz. This was running maxed @ 1280x1024 on an X1950GT.

Two different types of bottlenecking scenarios:

1) Your frame rate suffers because the game is particularly CPU-bound, so changing graphics quality settings won't have a big impact on framerate because your CPU will have reached a cap as far as computing things that require CPU operation, like physics, controller inputs, audio, AI, level scripts, etc. GPU-bound games will run without much bottlenecking at all in this kind of scenario.

2) The performance/age gap between your CPU and GPU is so great (P4 + 8800GTX), that it actually limits the GPU's graphics processing abilities (because GPU operations eventually have to pass through the CPU). In this case, you will suffer in both GPU and CPU intensive games.

Try running Fraps while playing the UT3 Beta on maxed settings and tell us what kind of framerate you're getting. A non-bottlenecked 8800GT should be getting well over 100+ fps, even about 130-ish. If you're getting a substantially lower frame rate, then your are in fact being bottlenecked. I'd probably say it's the first scenario , although you can only test this by seeing if you get a performance increase when you turn down exclusively your graphics settings (not physics or anything else cpu-related).